THE FEATHERED CAPE

The early life and culture of Hawaii in 1792, when the islands were united under the great chief, Kamehameha, and the struggle for domination was begun. Jonathan Blaine, an American impressed into service on a British ship, escapes and becomes involved in the final phases, between Kamehameha and another chief supported by British guns. Jonathan's story has the ring of truth, and is dramatically sustained with telling descriptions of the geography, battle techniques, tabus and personality of many of the island people and places. Suggest with this Adrienne Stone's Hawaii's Queen Liluokalani (Messner- see P. 129) -- two unusual books in giving younger teens a fairly rounded story of the not so far distant history of the Hawaiian Islands, now being considered for admission to statehood. End paper maps show the Sandwich Islands, as they were then known. Definitely a boys' book -- no family background -- chiefly a warrior story.